“Lucian had bad hallucinations?”
“The doctors called it trauma. But then I had him admitted, and they just … stopped.” Gaze cast to the side, it’s like she’s trying to avoid looking at me. “I don’t know what they did. But it worked.” The more she talks, the more troubled her expression turns. “Until it stopped working.”
She shifts on the bed and tugs the blankets up higher. “On second thought, I’d rather you didn’t read. I’m just going to sleep.”
Chapter 21
Lucian
Fifteen years ago …
“Lucian.” At the sound of my mother’s voice, I turn to find her standing alongside me. “This is Dr. Voigt. He’s going to help you.”
“Help?” Whatever was given to me has rendered me weak and listless, where I lie flat on my back with bright fluorescent lights blinding me. “Wh … where am I?”
“We’re in a hospital.” The unfamiliar voice belonging to a man answers this time. “We treat young men and women with your afflictions.”
“Affliction?”
“Sexual deviances.” At the side of the bed, a tall, slim man with dark hair and spectacles stands with his hands crossed over a clipboard in front of him, and on his finger, I notice the ring. The same one my father wears.
Ice curls through my veins, and eyes wide, I shake my head.
“I don’t … belong here.” Tugging at the straps on my arms is futile, as they don’t seem to give, the leather biting into my skin.
“For God’s sake, Lucian, you drowned.” My mother opens her purse, rifling around until she pulls out a Kleenex that she lifts to her nose, and it’s then I notice tears in her eyes. “You had to be revived. Don’t pretend like it didn’t happen. Do you have any idea what we’ve been through, the last couple of weeks? How this looks?”
“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”
“I wish you were! Do you honestly think the alternative sounds better?”
Through the haze of drugs, I vaguely remember the bath. Holding my breath. Getting off. Consumed by my loss of Solange. “Mother, I was just playing around. I don’t need to be admitted for this.”
“Your father insisted that you be admitted here, and I pray to God they can help you. I’ll not have my only son engaging in sick and disgusting acts. You’re sick, Lucian. You need therapy.”
“I’m not sick! Did it ever occur to you that it might’ve fucked me up a little seeing a dead woman?”
“That was years ago. You were just a little boy. You wouldn’t have remembered.”
“What are you talking about? It was a week ago! I saw her in that cave!”
“Lucian, there was no woman in that cave. Rand investigated himself. There was no woman tied to the post.”
“There was! It was Solange! I know what I saw!”
“Who’s Solange?” Dr. Voigt asks, tipping his head with the same curiosity I imagine he’d have for a lab rat curled over the tip of a syringe needle.
“I honestly haven’t a clue what he’s talking about.” Lifting her chin, my mother diverts her eyes away, as if she can’t stand to look at me through the lies.
“No. No, no, no. You know who she is. You know who she is!”
“Tell me, Lucian. Who is she?” Dr. Voigt’s tone suggests he’s humoring me. That he doesn’t believe me any more than I believe my mother’s bullshit right now.
“The maid!” Lifting my head from the bed, I stare at the side of her face, forcing her to look at me, to give in to whatever facade she’s creating, trying to make me look crazy. “You hated her. You wouldn’t spare her the slightest bit of your attention.”
“We’ve never had a maid named Solange.”
“We did.” The rage inside of me festers, in spite of the drugs. My whole body trembles, my head on the verge of exploding from the tension. “And you hated her. So much, you had her killed.”
When she finally sets her gaze on mine, a tear slips down her cheek. “She was a hallucination, Lucian. Just like Jude.”
“No. No, no, no. She’s lying. Her name was Solange, and they killed her!”
Lowering her head, my mother jerks with a sob and daubs her face with the Kleenex still clutched in her palm. “You’re not well, my sweet boy. You haven’t been for quite some time.”
Through a shield of tears, I stare back at her, realizing there is nothing I can do to convince her. Nothing I can say to convince the doctor, who has already decided that I belong in this place. “Mother, please.”
“Don’t worry, Lucian.” Dr. Voigt pats my leg and gives a squeeze where my ankle is also bound by restraints. “There is still time for you. Your mother did the right thing, having you admitted here. We have a one hundred percent success rate with our aversion therapy.”
She still hasn’t bothered to look at me, her eyes cast toward the floor. “He’ll be okay, then, doctor?”
“He’s in good hands, Laura. Don’t worry.”
“His father doesn’t want anyone to know he’s here.”
“You can put your confidence in us. We’ll keep all communications strictly through you.”
“I appreciate that, Doctor. Thank you.”
“And, Lucian.” She stares down at me, the sadness in her eyes turning more resolute. “Don’t fight them, darling. This is for your own good.”
I open my eyes to see masked faces standing over me. A too-bright light bends from the ceiling, like an insect clawing its way inside the room. Nausea gurgles in my stomach. The throbbing ache at my temples is a hammer pounding into my skull.
I try to lift my arm to shield the piercing brightness, and it won’t move, still bound by the leather straps of the bed. My heart beats in time to the blood rushing through my ears. “What is this?”
No one answers.
A white towel is placed over my face, and I snap my head back and forth to remove it, but something is strapped around my neck, holding it in place. Writhing and kicking is futile against the straps holding me down.
Ice cold fluids are poured over the towel, and when I gasp in shock, the saturated fabric sucks into my gaping mouth.
The air diminishes.
A sharp pain strikes my groin, and I arch on the bed, crying out. A burning snap, like a spark on my most sensitive flesh.
More fluids trickle around my face, and I shake my head back and forth on another gasp. A second zap lashes at my balls, like an electric current running over me. “Fuck!” Teeth clenched against the pain, I arch as much as the binds will allow.
The pressure at my throat loosens, and the towel is pulled way. Blurred figures stand over me, while I blink away the water dripping from my eyelashes and draw in long, agonizing breaths, my chest pounding with the need for air. Dr. Voigt stands beside a woman I’ve never seen before. Dark hair and almond-shaped brown eyes. Maybe Asian.
“I understand you have a fascination with water. Do you remember drowning, Lucian?”
Still trying to catch my breath, I don’t bother to answer them.